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Sunday, February 28, 2016

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, resigned on Sunday in order to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Gabbard — who was the first Hindu and first American Samoan to be elected to Congress, as well as the youngest person ever elected to the Hawaii legislature, at age 21 — commended the leftist Vermont senator for his foreign policy, and his opposition to the hawkish policies of fellow presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

"After much thought and consideration, I've decided I cannot remain neutral and sit on the sidelines any longer," she wrote in an email to fellow DNC officers obtained by Politico. "There is a clear contrast between our two candidates with regard to my strong belief that we must end the interventionist, regime change policies that have cost us so much," Gabbard said. "This is not just another 'issue.' This is THE issue, and it's deeply personal to me," Gabbard continued. "This is why I’ve decided to resign as Vice Chair of the DNC so that I can support Bernie Sanders in his efforts to earn the Democratic nomination in the 2016 presidential race."

About those super-delegates:

Sanders’ campaign accused the DNC and Wasserman Schultz of “actively attempting to undermine” his bid for president.

In a Feb. 11 interview, Wasserman Schultz openly admitted that the Democratic Party’s superdelegate system, which consists of unelected party elites who have a large influence on the primary election, exists in order to ensure establishment candidates don’t have to run “against grassroots activists.”

CNN host Jake Tapper asked the DNC chair, “What do you tell voters who are new to the process who say this makes them feel like it’s all rigged?”

“Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists,” Wasserman Schultz explained.

“I’m not sure that that answer would satisfy an anxious young voter,” Tapper replied.

12 comments:

“Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists,” Wasserman Schultz explained.

From the land of government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Need to put "democratic" back into the Democratic Party. Now it is a party of elite entitlement.

You’re right, of course. But I’m in a contrarian mood these days. In my case, a sign of aging. ;-) Others take to shuffleboard or whatever aging people like to do. I’ve reverted to my three- to five-year-old self which was constantly angry with the world as I saw it--and I wasn’t wrong-- and had zero respect for all the adults around me. I was actually quite intelligent then and was constantly arguing with their logic, and their supposed kindnesses; i.e. rules. Apparently, I was a handful. My mother said I was the first kid under six she ever knew that was scornful. My father thought he could beat me out of it; didn’t work.

That said, I want to watch the parties to implode under the weight of their entitlement. That’s why I’m firmly behind Trump and Sanders, altho’ Sanders is a troglodyte about matters geopolitical I’ve discovered, and it frightens me because he can be easily duped by ideology.

The fact that you can stick a fork in Sanders now, it has nothing to do with the establishment, he simply couldn't move his appeal beyond his university base and angry, mostly white, rich kids. He is still useful though, otherwise the orthodox economics cranks, Krugman/Romers/Baker type that we see on MNE would be talking about how we are approaching "full employment" and "reaching productive capacity" instead of audacious governance.

Quite premature to call the race for Clinton, at least Tulsi Gabbard thinks so. Before SC, Clinton only led Sanders by a whopping 1 committed delegate. That the numbers would go against him at this point was obvious. What counts is how many they have at the end of the primaries.

"The New York Times is sitting on an audio recording that some of its staff believes could deal a serious blow to Donald Trump, who, in an off-the-record meeting with the newspaper, called into question whether he would stand by his own immigration views.[…]On Saturday, columnist Gail Collins, one of the attendees at the meeting (which also included editor-in-chief Dean Baquet), floated a bit of speculation in her column:

The most optimistic analysis of Trump as a presidential candidate is that he just doesn’t believe in positions, except the ones you adopt for strategic purposes when you’re making a deal. So you obviously can’t explain how you’re going to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, because it’s going to be the first bid in some future monster negotiation session."